The CEO’s Quadruplets

She wanted to scream, but she knew that it would scare people who kept going about their business in the bathroom. Someone else had just entered it. Fishing out the little baggie from the pharmacy in her massive purse, Isabella slipped the test into the plastic before tucking it away in the shoulder bag’s abyss. She had to act cool as she washed her hands. She had to remain nonchalant about her business as she slowly walked to her office, realizing she had waisted most of her lunch break.

She had to shut the door as she grabbed a breakfast bar to stuff in her face, while at the same time calling Lizzie on speaker phone. It felt like ages to Isabella as the phone rang and rang, even though she new her best friend was more than likely staring at her phone while eating a salad for lunch tucked away in some corner of the hospital.

Finally Lizzie answered with, “Hey, B, what’s up?”

Unsure of how to begin, Isabella just blurted out what first came mind, saying, “Do you think you could fit me in?”

“When, next week? You having trouble with the hormone pills? That’s not out of the ordinary. They give people weird symptoms sometimes.”

“Um, no. There’s something I need you to confirm.”

There was a pause of silence from Lizzie’s end before she quickly said, “You come as freaking fast as you can. I will leave the office open just for you.”

It took a long time for the day to end. The clock dragged on, but Isabella ran for her car the second she was free to leave. Taking advantage of her wagon’s size, she blasted past the tiny electric cars and sporty Italian numbers amongst the Los Angeles traffic.

At five o’clock that afternoon on the dot, Isabella sat on the crinkly medical paper while she wore a pink smock and no shoes. She sent a message to Amory that she had to meet with a student this afternoon, and might be back late. Isabella did not have any students yet, but he bought it with no questions. It gave her plenty of time to agonize and swing her legs alone in the examination room. Lizzie had stepped out hurriedly, and would only come back with conclusive results. Isabella made her promise.

Sure enough, Lizzie came back in pulling an ultrasound cart as she said, “I want to take a look at this embryo!”

“So there is one?” Isabella was elated. She could feel her heartbeat quicken as she spoke the question.

Lizzie nodded. “Tests say yes! But, I’m curious since you do have a history of twins and you took hormones to help things along if there might be a party for two going on in your uterus right now. I hope you’re okay with a transva*inal procedure. We’ll get better results this way.”

“Sure, but are you trained to work this thing?”

“Yeah! Don’t you remember I was a sonographer part-time to pay for medical school and sorority dues? We might have never met if I did not have that job.”

“Liz, you know we would have found each other on that campus regardless of our sisterhood.”

Lizzie grinned, happy to share the moment of pure and honest friendship. Isabella leaned back on the odd medical bed as she had a bit more confidence in her friend and obstetrician. Isabella was left to her own thoughts as Lizzie got to work.

The concept of two babies was even more thrilling. Sure, it would be a great deal more in the amount of work with two, but Isabella was up for it. She was not sure if she would have time for a pregnancy like this again between the all the ambitions of both her and Amory. Having two in one would make life a bit easier in that sense. Plus, she could already imagine all the little outfits and the joint birthday parties the twins could have. She could see her brothers taking pictures with their nieces/nephews. As she felt the weird little microscope slip up her va*ina, Isabella closed her eyes and waited for Lizzie to tell her what she saw on the screen.

“Oh my god,” Lizzie said.

Scaring Isabella, her eyes shot open as she now looked at the blurry screen herself. She saw circles and moving gray masses, but this was no her field. The whole image made little sense to her.

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh no!” Lizzie pulled herself from her fixated gaze on the screen. “It’s all fine, but can you see this little dot?”

She pointed to the screen with a pin from her pocket closing the distance, and let the plastic tap against the glass. Isabella nodded. She could make out a small thing that looked like a bean nestled in the outer rim of the oddly shaped egg space taking up most of the screen.

Lizzie began to explain in a slow cadence. “That’s an embryo. It’s about six or seven weeks along, so I expect for that little one to pop out the last week of February. However… there is a bit of a party situation going on, and I don’t think it’s a trick of the camera.”

“Party?” Isabella asked with a hopeful tone. “So it is twins?”

“Well, there’s another baby Blake there,” Lizzie said as she tapped on another little dot nearby. “And across the bay, there’s another pair. They all have their own little spaces as you can see by these fine lines showing up on the screen, but there are definitely multiple little ones in you right now, Bella.”

Drawing an imaginary line and then another, Isabella watched as the pen grew close and encircled two embryo beans hanging out in another spot within her womb. The black consuming the screen was actually four different peas all in their own little pods.

“Liz… are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Elizabeth Harris had her eyes wide as she turned back and looked at her friend with shock. Nodding slowly, Isabella felt flabbergasted. Four children? Four children?! She had never imagined having so many children total. She wanted two, maybe three, but four?! The idea of having them all at once felt daunting. Isabella took Lizzie’s hand, suddenly nervous about the future.

“What am I going to do? What’s next?” Isabella said weakly.

“I’m sorry, but tequila shots can’t solve this one.”

Thinking of work at her new teaching job, Isabella asked her friend, “Will I have to go on bed rest?”

Lizzie pulled the microscope out of Isabella as the image was sent to the printer in another room. She thought it over as she went from being a friend to a medical professional speaking to a patient.